Brag & Laugh

A bit more bragging: I got the new Interweave TODAY!! Jealous?

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Published today in the Globe, and certain to attract swarms of letters to the editor. Enjoy!

Blame it all on the gay agenda

By Steve Kluger

IT'S FINALLY happened. We've been exposed. With the recent ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court requiring equal marital rights for same-gender couples, the Homosexual Agenda has been outed by our spiritual leaders -- who urge Americans to vote Republican on Election Day in order to preserve our few remaining national values.

What's there left to do but come clean? Although we've attempted to keep our covert ops cloaked in diverting sequins, there's no plugging the leaks that have revealed our subversive intentions. It's the Pentagon Papers all over again.

The truth began to emerge last week when a male couple was wed in Massachusetts. Twenty minutes later, three heterosexual marriages fell apart in Kansas City. Under ordinary circumstances, one of our operatives would have been present to hide the evidence under a stack of Liza Minnelli CDs, but he was watching an episode of "I Love Lucy" with his 9-year-old niece so that she could go forth and recruit her young friends in fourth grade.

And marriage isn't the only institution we've infiltrated. In fact, we're present in every headline that frightens you -- you just don't know it yet.

The E.coli outbreak in spinach originated in California's Salinas Valley, known for decades as "The Salad Bowl." It doesn't exactly take a degree in sociology to figure out which minority would name a massive slab of the state's geological plate after a fresh vegetable medley. And this was before the nearby Santa Lucia Mountains were rechristened the Tong-and-Chic Range.

Osama bin Laden remains at large. We're not exactly proud to claim him as one of ours, but in the interest of national security we're morally required to reveal that he moonlights as an internationally beloved drag queen -- and we can't keep track of him either. He was last spotted in Detroit as Carol Channing (his fave), but sources in the gay Taliban tell us that he's been working on a fabulous Barbara Bush. You go, girl.

Our president is not to be reviled for entangling us in a war with Iraq. When US reconnaissance aircraft flew over that country in 2002, they inadvertently filmed the Baghdad Pride Parade. No doubt it was the Joan Crawford float that was mistaken in Washington for a weapon of mass destruction. It could happen to anyone.

Don't believe that global warming is the result of fossil fuel emissions or SUVs parked in spaces marked "Compact Only." Check the graphs at the Environmental Protection Agency and note that the temperature spiked with the boxed-set DVD release of "The Complete Barbra Streisand." Then imagine the catastrophic energy consumption when 19 million disc players are programmed to repeat the ironically titled "Don't Rain on My Parade" as a continuous loop.

Yes, the North Koreans are playing with nukes. But the threat from Pyongyang might have been avoided if those hiding in the Pentagon closets had been monitoring Kim Jong-il instead of super-cute Kayne Gillaspie on "Project Runway." This was merely our diversionary tactic so that nobody would be paying attention when we slipped onto military bases around the world and convinced all the troops to turn gay. The generals were right after all. It's that easy.

Children need to be protected from the most hazardous predator currently stalking them: "A Chorus Line." It recently opened on Broadway to near-unanimous acclaim -- and if legislative action is not taken immediately, there won't be any boys left for the NFL to draft in 2016 who aren't wearing tap shoes and tights.

And since it's going to come out sooner or later anyway, you might as well know that Ethel Merman was a man.

So before you vote on Nov. 7, remember that the escalating decay we suffer as a nation is not due to a dishonest and immoral war, nor to an ethic that drives school children to acquire assault weapons for show-and-tell, nor to a callous disregard of the natural resources that we've plundered into near-extinction. Instead, blame it all on two anonymous guys in New Jersey who just want to pledge their lives to one another.

Then listen to your heart.

- Steve Kluger is a novelist and playwright.